Meanwhile Lurch’s Operation Dithering Coalition of 40 is still recruiting.
Hundreds of Kurdish fighters have crossed from Turkey and Iraq into neighboring Syria to defend a Kurdish area under attack by Islamic State militants, as leaders of the ethnic group appealed for international assistance in their battle against the extremists.
The movement of the Kurdish fighters into Syria reflected the ferocity of the fighting in the northern Kobani area, which borders Turkey. Militants of the extremist Islamic State group have been barreling through the area over the past three days, seizing villages and forcing at least 60,000 Syrian Kurds to flee into Turkey.
“Kobani is facing the fiercest and most barbaric attack in its history,” said official Mohammed Saleh Muslim, head of Syria’s powerful Kurdish Democratic Union. The groups’ members dominate the Syrian Kurdish group known as the YPK, which is fighting the Islamic State militants.
“Kobani calls on all those who defend humane and democratic values … to stand by Kobani and support it immediately. The coming hours are decisive,” he said in a message sent to reporters.[…]
But it’s not clear if the U.S. would be willing to assist the Syrian Kurdish fighters. The YPK is viewed with suspicion by many Syrian rebels and their Western supporters because of perceived links to President Bashar Assad’s government. That may be changing, however, as Kurdish fighters battle alongside some Syrian rebel groups against the Islamic State in northern and eastern Syria.
NATO member Turkey is also wary of the group, which it believes is affiliated with the Kurdish PKK movement. Turkey has so far been cool to any international coalition to fight the Islamic State group, but if Western countries are seen publicly arming the Syrian Kurds, it would likely destroy any hopes of cajoling the Turkish government into cooperating.